April 1st, 2009
As my job is going to be slowly switched to security I was browsing eBay today and while surfing for PIXs and ASAs looked at prices of routers and switches for CCIE R&S. You can now get a 3550 48 port SMI for $350 which is dirt cheap compared to last year or a bit more when I was looking. Then they were around $1000. For someone going into CCNP it would be great to buy two of these plus a couple 2950 ($75-100) and a couple 2610 ($100) which can all be used for CCIE later. Thats just above $1.000 and trust me will be very beneficial for you. Just for BCMSN I used around $150 for rental and used Dynamips for others but would have loved to have had real equipment.
I can say that now it has become affordable to acquire equipment for your CCNP which can carry on to CCIE (just add 2 more 3560) and you can also use these in all other CCIE concentrations and preparations for the likes of CCSP.
Think about it 
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
March 8th, 2009
I have recently been able to test online flash cards from www.certflashcardsonline.com. Trying to prepare anyways for this exam so this was a nice addition to the materials. Tride out a couple of the “tests” in which you get 50ish questions and try to answer it before looking at the answer. Nice thing is that you get thorough explanations for each answer so you know why you were wrong. Pretty good materials and will surely come in handy when taking the test. One thing I did not like is that you can’t just go to the home page you need to go to app.certflashcardsonline.com to find the tests. A bit awckward for me but it was free and still beats anything else I have seen so two thumbs up.
Posted in Cisco | 1 Comment »
December 16th, 2008
Hey people, spent like two hours setting everything up so thought someone might like to try it out. It is from the first volume the OSPFv2 exercise, think its not breaking no legal stuff.
KLMN router are attached just to the 10.31.x.x network with O. The network 10.30.254.x is not operational but still there are connections built in the .NET file.
When moving my blog to another server the files got lost and can’t find them right now as I switched to another computer too and the last one is gone. Still trying to find everything but not sure if I will be able to. Sorry 
Posted in CCIE | 3 Comments »
November 17th, 2008
How to switch between multiple terminals (command prompts for you windows people )
ALT + F1 - ALT + F6
How to view processes
just use “top”
Thats all folks
Posted in Fedora | No Comments »
July 17th, 2008
Just today had a situation where we had some strange behaviour. Some users and OUs were not replicating. OK I go in do some diagnostics just to find out those are some two old DCs which had been brought back to life after like 4 months.
The thing is their Tombstone time expired and now they were no good (if you know what I mean). It took some time and a whole lot of searching
Here is the TechNet article on it.
Reconnecting a Domain Controller After a Long-Term Disconnection
P.S. I passed 70-298 my finall exam for the MCSE: Security
Posted in Microsoft | No Comments »
February 29th, 2008
It was a drag
Luckily these two posts made it clear (aftear a couple of hours lost) as to how to make everything right in Virtual PC
Link one
Link two
Check out the comments on them there is some wisdom there too
Posted in Fedora, Microsoft | 1 Comment »
December 13th, 2007
Well since I am now studying for my ISCW it was time to test SDM and how it works. None the less it only works on Windows operating systems. First couple of practices I did went with no problem, but as soon as I got to 3 routers and some tunneling and encryption I got the popular memory stack problems. Needing to alleviate this problem I sat down and thought hard. Having before tried the Windows inside Linux and vice versa, I knew there was no really good solution. Finally it came to me that while trying Fedora inside VMWare on Windows I was running the InternetworkExpert topology with something like 15ish routers. Sitting on 3 routers inside VMWare on Fedora and using SDM from my host Windows really works cool. And its not a problem to setup.
1. After you have everything setup for host/guest communication with VMWare start the Dynamips process on Linux
2. On Windows create your .net file and set it up so that each router has an interface pointing out through the VMWare interface to you host machine.
3. Add addressing on those interfaces and ping them from the host machine, should work.
4. Connect with your SDM to the routers
Happy securing and device hardening
Posted in ISCW | No Comments »
December 10th, 2007
I just finished the Cisco Academy teleworker connectivity chapter and learned some good stuff.
These two use a lot of the same logic, in principle the key is a router connection to the provider and NAT/PAT translation on the inside part of the network.
Steps to cover a PPPoE connection are:
- Configure the “outside” interface which will be used to connect yourself to the provider (note: no ip address)
- Configure your dialer interface which will negotiate your IP and make sure you are connected (note: mtu size 1492)
- Configure NAT/PAT (note: take care of mss, max 1452)
- Setup DHCP for the inside network
- Make a default route to the provider
The PPPoA situation is very close and differs in an obligatory mode and encapsulation settings.
Posted in ISCW | No Comments »
December 8th, 2007
No testking, pass4sure, actualtest or anything else
Since I am an MCT, MOCs for the upgrade are available and I must say I did not read everything. The upgrade exam is consisted actually of two exams, one for TS: Active directory and one for TS: Network Infrastructure. You need to pass both to get the upgrade, I barely scraped through Network Infrastructure with 700/1000 (the exact ammount needed to pass) and failed the AD part (572/1000). There is a lot of new stuff on the exams. And the new stuff is really cool, I already wrote about it and now that I have studied it some more there are just words of praise for the MS team. RODC and Core Server installation is such a great combination for a branch office. Interesting is that I have not even touched the infrastructure part of the material and I passed it, which would perhaps mean that it was a bit easier or that I had more luck guessing :) Well it was stuff I work more with so it was a bit easier for me. I really do bealive that a person with expirience could go through the MOCs and pass these exams (perhaps not in a first try but not all that hard) so when you get the chance prepare yourselves and get to it.
I will report back if I pass next time.
P.S. Second shot is on the table until end of January!
P.S.S. No I can’t share the MOCs
Posted in Windows Server 2008 | No Comments »
December 7th, 2007
This sounds too much like FBI and CIA
IIN - Inteligent Information Network
SONA - Service Oriented Network Architecture
Been reading the Cisco network academy program and this is the first chapter. I felt lost, thought I was in design land. Anyway some great info is there. Thinking of organizing a strong and flexible network? Surely take a look at this as it describes the architecture of an enterprise network all together with SOHO/Mobile workers/Branch offices. I already knew a good deal of this as the layered network structure (access/distribution/core) is a part of the BCMSN that recently succumbed to my brain.
The biggest problem of all the topics seems to be the remote worker connecting to the inside of the network. VPNs, IPSec, MPLS are all parts of the ISCW so can’t wait to get on to those.
Gotta go now 
Posted in ISCW | No Comments »